Al Brown and the bottomless $3.50 cup of coffee, top chef calls on caffeine snobs to give drip coffee another go. Video / Carson Bluck
Consumers are urged to swap expensive espressos for cheaper filter coffees amid rising prices.
Demand for filter coffee is growing, with cafes offering it for better profit margins and customer value.
Filter coffee is seen as a cost-effective option, appealing to younger customers with delicate palates.
Cash-strapped consumers are being urged to swap expensive espressos for cheaper filter coffees.
Top Auckland chef Al Brown says the modern product (also known as drip coffee) is not the Americanised “swill” people remember.
And with coffee prices rising, he’s calling on caffeine lovers to reconsider the brew that’s commonlyserved as a bottomless pour or half the price of a barista-made cup.
“We just need to get over this snobbery that there’s only one sort of coffee... I’m not poo-pooing our espresso genius and how wonderful we are at that. But if you’re paying $7 it better be good,” Brown tells the Herald.
Demand for drip coffee is growing. One major supplier told the Herald that hospitality industry orders had doubled in the past six months, as cafes looked for improved profit margins and younger customers with “delicate palates” moved away from strong and milk coffees.
Brown, who serves a $3.50 bottomless cup of filter at his Best Ugly Bagels cafes says it’s easier and cheaper to produce, arrives quickly, “and it gets you as high as regular coffee”.
On a barista-operated espresso machine, high-pressure hot water is forced through finely ground beans to produce a small, strong shot of coffee that is then topped up with hot water or steamed milk.
In a filter coffee, hot water drips slowly over coarser-ground beans to produce a batch of coffee that can be drunk as is, or topped with a small amount of milk.
Brown still has a daily espresso – but he also drinks instant coffee, uses coffee “pods” and likes to sit on a cup of filter. He says customers should know there are multiple coffee options.
Crema? Not as an espresso-drinker knows it. Drip coffee at $3.50 a bottomless serve from Auckland's Best Ugly Bagels. Photo / Carson Bluck
“I love champagne. But I don’t drink it all the time. I drink prosecco and that’s still delicious. I’ll eat an expensive gourmet sausage, but I’ll also love one at Bunnings on a Saturday morning when I’m picking up my nails and screws. It’s horses for courses.
“It’s like wine. It was always red with red meat and white with white meat. But if you want to drink rum and coke with your crayfish and truffle butter, knock yourself out. Who are we to start shaming people about what they eat and drink? I’m proud to be a drip drinker.”
Chef Al Brown pours a $3.50 drip coffee at Auckland's Best Ugly Bagels. Photo / Carson Bluck
Around the country, filter coffee is on the rise. At Burnt Butter in Avondale, Auckland, the decision to serve filter coffee only was dictated by the cafe’s small size.
“It was either a coffee machine or a food cabinet - and neither of us wanted to spend our day making coffee,” says co-owner Claudia Long.
Recent expansion means the cafe is likely to have a barista-operated machine in place for summer. Long says while “90%” of patrons have accepted drip coffee, “a particular group of people” haven’t.
“They’re so horrified and so rude to us about it - and then they go. I’ve actually been quite happy for that to be a quick cut of those kinds of customers. I guess otherwise they would have sat down, had their large coffee and probably had issues with something else.”
Long charges $6 for a bottomless cup of black coffee (milk starts at $1 extra).
“I think if you’re an espresso or long black drinker, there are a lot of people who love filter these days. They have Moccamasters or whatever else at home, so they are educated and know it’s good coffee. We’ve created a real community of customers.”
With cafe owners dealing with price increases for everything from butter to coffee to milk, Long says, “at some point you have to bite the bullet and pass that on”.
“I think that’s when filter coffee is going to take off, because you can keep it at a reasonable price.
“With a barista coffee ... everybody is already irked at what they’re paying. Maybe it will become more of a treat? Filter every other day and your flat white on a Saturday?”
Filter coffee snobbery is misplaced, says Joseph Walker, Hokitika Sandwich Company owner.
“The fun thing with filter, is you can start slinging single origin coffees . . . go to any roastery in New Zealand and all the employees are drinking filter coffee, because that’s where you really get to taste the coffee.”
Joseph Walker, owner and founder of the Hokitika Sandwich Company on the South Island's West Coast, invites customers to grab a mug and drink bottomless filter coffee. Photo / Supplied
Espresso-based coffees are inevitably made with a blend of beans, Walker says. Price, cost and consistency were behind his decision to open a filter coffee-only cafe on the South Island’s West Coast.
“Finding skilled baristas can be quite hard in the little regional centres. You need good beans, good milk and good machines, but the barista is quite critical.
“And I really wanted my customers to get better value. When I go to a cafe, I usually drink long blacks and I want at least two. I end up spending $10 on coffee before I’ve even eaten.”
Filter coffee was a hard-sell. When he opened in 2017, he says 90% of customers baulked at it.
“They’d say things like ‘we want real coffee’. Now, that’s down to maybe six out of 10 – we’re slowly getting more people to be open to it."
Walker says Kiwis have “tunnel vision” when it comes to coffee. While filter coffee is acceptable internationally, “we went from instant to espresso”.
But, he says, an under-extracted espresso served as a flat white in a big cup is not coffee.
“Like, they don’t really want coffee, they want a big, milky beverage.”
Walker (who charges $5 for a bottomless cup) says the focus should be on what the customer is drinking, not how it’s made.
“It’d be like saying I love fish, but I only eat grilled fish – not poached or smoked or steamed or pan fried. It’s weird. ‘Oh, I had a bad cup of filter in 1989 so I’m never going to have filter coffee again’...”
Andrew Low, chief executive of Supreme Coffee, says filter coffee “just tastes a whole lot better” than it did in the 1980s - and demand is growing, as customer habits changed.
Low said a recently launched drip bag for at-home use had “really taken off”. Meanwhile, more cafes were offering filter coffee because it did not require as much investment in milk, equipment or staff time.
“A third variable is youth customers. They’re not drinking as much strong black and milk coffee . . . they’re coming into the category with a more delicate palate and they’re liking this as a choice.”
Low said historically between 3% and 5% of the country’s cafes served filter coffee.
“That number has probably doubled in the last six months and it looks like a trend that will continue.”
Wellington cafe The Hangar, operated by Flight Coffee, offers its customers three separate filter blends, at $6 a non-refillable cup. Sales are consistent, but comparatively small - just 7.36% of spend from January to May this year, says managing director, Richard Corney.
Richard Corney, managing director of Flight Coffee, says higher prices won't stop customers ordering coffees.
“Since we opened in 2012, my rent has increased 103%, my wages have increased 136% and yet I’ve only increased my cup prices 72%. How is it that all these other costs have gone up around us, yet we’re not passing on the increases ... I think we, as an industry, are arbitrarily keeping it low.
“Some are genuinely scared they’ll lose business if they put their prices up. I mean this respectfully, but it’s an irrational fear. If, overnight, every single outlet that sold coffee - from petrol stations to cafes - charged $10 a cup, then everybody would [eventually] pay $10 a cup.”
But he’s not convinced that even that hypothetical would create a huge shift to filter coffee.
“It’s a different coffee consumption experience. It’s up your alley for sure if you’re a long black drinker, but that’s only something like 15% of our customers . . . Kiwis, we like our mug of milk.”
Kim Knight joined the New Zealand Herald in 2016 and currently works as a senior reporter on its lifestyle desk. At the 2025 Voyager Media Awards she received the Gordon McLauchlan Journalism Award for best lifestyle reporting.
